Garitina

Cascina Garitina

Founded in 1900, the domaine is family run and owned. ‘Garitina’ is Piemontese dialect for ‘little Margherita’, the great grandmother of the current owner, Gianluco Morino. Today he farms 26 hectares of vineyards in the heart of Monferrato (the modern provinces of Asti and Alessandria). Gianluco no longer calls his Brachetto ‘Brachetto d’Acqui’ as he believes strongly that the Consorzio is promoting industrial wines and indefensibly high yields.

The Brachetto grapes are grown in a South by South-West facing vineyard at 300 meters altitude and hand-harvested in small boxes to avoid crushing the fruit. After 4 days of cold maceration on the skins, followed by soft pressing and slow fermentation. On reaching 5% fermentation is stopped by reducing the temperature, and the wine is filtered. This leaves the wine with a slight bubble and lots of unfermented sugar, nicely balanced by the grape’s natural acidity. A perfect match for pastries and strong cheeses.